Wikidot Bloghttp://blog.wikidot.com
Thu, 24 May 2018 17:21:10 +0000http://blog.wikidot.com/blog:black-friday-2017Black Friday 2017http://blog.wikidot.com/blog:black-friday-2017
<p>Black Friday is here &#8212; as every year we have something special for you. Here's what we got for you this year:</p>
<div class="image-container aligncenter"><a href="https://www.wikidot.com/account/upgrade"><img src="http://blog.wdfiles.com/local--files/files/bf2017.png" style="width: 600px;max-width:100%;-moz-box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px #aaa; -webkit-box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px #aaa; box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px #aaa" alt="bf2017.png" class="image" /></a></div>
<p>All prices are <strong>40% off till Thursday</strong>, 30. November. The discount applies to both new upgrades and prolongations. So even if you current upgrade ends in a few months, you can purchase an upgrade for the next year now for the discounted price.</p>
<p>As usual you can save <strong>additional 15%</strong> if you chose &quot;Bitcoin&quot; as a payment method.</p>
<p>Upgrading takes just a few minutes. Or even less. Take a look at <a href="https://www.wikidot.com/account/upgrade">the upgrade panel</a>. The new prices are already there.</p>
<p>Happy Black Friday price hunting!</p>
<p>&#8212; The Wikidot Team</p>
<p>by <span class="printuser avatarhover"><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" ><img class="small" src="http://www.wikidot.com/avatar.php?userid=1&amp;amp;size=small&amp;amp;timestamp=1527182468" alt="michal-frackowiak" style="background-image:url(http://www.wikidot.com/userkarma.php?u=1)" /></a><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" >michal-frackowiak</a></span></p>
Fri, 24 Nov 2017 07:57:51 +0000
Black Friday is here — as every year we have something special for you. Here's what we got for you this year:

All prices are 40% off till Thursday, 30. November. The discount applies to both new upgrades and prolongations. So even if you current upgrade ends in a few months, you can purchase an upgrade for the next year now for the discounted price.

As usual you can save additional 15% if you chose "Bitcoin" as a payment method.

Upgrading takes just a few minutes. Or even less. Take a look at the upgrade panel. The new prices are already there.

]]>
http://blog.wikidot.com/blog:s3-outageS3 and Wikidot outagehttp://blog.wikidot.com/blog:s3-outage
<p>Some of you noticed Wikidot was down yestarday for more than two hour. This is not something that happens often &#8212; previous serious outage we had was in November 2014.</p>
<p>The root cause of this outage was Amazon S3 failure. Wikidot, as well as millions of other websites all over the internet, rely on S3 for hosting files. S3 is exactly where we keep the files you upload in your wikis, but it's also where we keep JavaScript and CSS files required for displaying our web pages in your browsers.</p>
<div class="image-container aligncenter"><img src="http://blog.wdfiles.com/local--files/files/Selection_042.png" style="width: 400px;max-width:100%;-moz-box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px #aaa; -webkit-box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px #aaa; box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px #aaa" alt="Selection_042.png" class="image" /></div>
<p>Till now S3 has never failed before to this extent. It sure was not a small failure and it took down several other Amazon services. It also affected all services and websites that use Amazon Web Services. It's not just Wikidot alone: Trello, Travis CI, GitHub and GitLab, Quora, Medium, Signal, Slack, Imgur, Twitch.tv, Razer, Apple's iCloud and several other websites could not function properly (or were not reachable at all). A significant percentage of websites all over the world relies on S3 and only now we learned what happens when it's down.</p>
<p>The issue was so severe that even Amazon could not update their status board to let us know about the problems. It was probably hosted on S3 as well&#8230; It looks like engineers simply assumed that S3 would be available no matter what.</p>
<p>Wikidot infrastructure design relies on a certain assumption about S3 as well. We simply assumed everything can break, but not S3 itself. Even our backup site (in case databases and servers fail) is hosted on S3.</p>
<p>I guess today several admins and developers (especially from services affected by the S3 outage) try to find a way to loosen their dependencies on S3 and protect their services against similar events. We are going to look at this too &#8212; the data you keep with us is our top priority.</p>
<p>Thanks for your understanding and I am sorry for any trouble our outage might have caused.</p>
<p>Michal and the Wikidot Team</p>
<p>by <span class="printuser avatarhover"><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" ><img class="small" src="http://www.wikidot.com/avatar.php?userid=1&amp;amp;size=small&amp;amp;timestamp=1527182468" alt="michal-frackowiak" style="background-image:url(http://www.wikidot.com/userkarma.php?u=1)" /></a><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" >michal-frackowiak</a></span></p>
Wed, 01 Mar 2017 10:54:48 +0000
Some of you noticed Wikidot was down yestarday for more than two hour. This is not something that happens often — previous serious outage we had was in November 2014.

The root cause of this outage was Amazon S3 failure. Wikidot, as well as millions of other websites all over the internet, rely on S3 for hosting files. S3 is exactly where we keep the files you upload in your wikis, but it's also where we keep JavaScript and CSS files required for displaying our web pages in your browsers.

Till now S3 has never failed before to this extent. It sure was not a small failure and it took down several other Amazon services. It also affected all services and websites that use Amazon Web Services. It's not just Wikidot alone: Trello, Travis CI, GitHub and GitLab, Quora, Medium, Signal, Slack, Imgur, Twitch.tv, Razer, Apple's iCloud and several other websites could not function properly (or were not reachable at all). A significant percentage of websites all over the world relies on S3 and only now we learned what happens when it's down.

The issue was so severe that even Amazon could not update their status board to let us know about the problems. It was probably hosted on S3 as well… It looks like engineers simply assumed that S3 would be available no matter what.

Wikidot infrastructure design relies on a certain assumption about S3 as well. We simply assumed everything can break, but not S3 itself. Even our backup site (in case databases and servers fail) is hosted on S3.

I guess today several admins and developers (especially from services affected by the S3 outage) try to find a way to loosen their dependencies on S3 and protect their services against similar events. We are going to look at this too — the data you keep with us is our top priority.

Thanks for your understanding and I am sorry for any trouble our outage might have caused.

]]>
http://blog.wikidot.com/blog:merry-xmas-2016Merry Xmas 2016!http://blog.wikidot.com/blog:merry-xmas-2016
<p>Me and the Wikidot Team would like to wish you all best. Whether you are going to celebrate upcoming holidays with your families or friends or you are just going to get some rest and prepare for new challenges &#8212; may this time fill your heart with peace and happiness! Best wishes!</p>
<div class="image-container aligncenter"><img src="http://blog.wdfiles.com/local--files/files/xmas_2016.png" style="max-width: 560px" alt="xmas_2016.png" class="image" /></div>
<p>PS. I also hope at least some of you will see some snow on Christmas :-)</p>
<p>by <span class="printuser avatarhover"><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" ><img class="small" src="http://www.wikidot.com/avatar.php?userid=1&amp;amp;size=small&amp;amp;timestamp=1527182469" alt="michal-frackowiak" style="background-image:url(http://www.wikidot.com/userkarma.php?u=1)" /></a><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" >michal-frackowiak</a></span></p>
Sat, 24 Dec 2016 07:33:26 +0000
Me and the Wikidot Team would like to wish you all best. Whether you are going to celebrate upcoming holidays with your families or friends or you are just going to get some rest and prepare for new challenges — may this time fill your heart with peace and happiness! Best wishes!

PS. I also hope at least some of you will see some snow on Christmas :-)

]]>
http://blog.wikidot.com/blog:black-friday-2016Black Friday deal - 40% off, save extra 15% with BTChttp://blog.wikidot.com/blog:black-friday-2016
<p>Tomorrow is Black Friday &#8212; a highly anticipated day for many Wikidot users. Therefore we have prepared a special deal (yes, a discount!) for all our current and new users &#8212; and it starts now! Here are the details:</p>
<div class="image-container aligncenter"><a href="https://www.wikidot.com/account/upgrade"><img src="http://blog.wdfiles.com/local--files/files/bf2016.png" style="width: 400px;max-width:100%;-moz-box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px #aaa; -webkit-box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px #aaa; box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px #aaa" alt="bf2016.png" class="image" /></a></div>
<p>All prices are <strong>40% off till Tuesday</strong>, 29 November. They apply to both new upgrades and prolongations. You can save <strong>additional 15%</strong> on top of the discount if you pay with <strong>bitcoins</strong> (simply choose &quot;Bitcoin&quot; at checkout).</p>
<p>To upgrade, simply visit <a href="https://www.wikidot.com/account/upgrade">the upgrade panel</a>. The new prices are already there.</p>
<p>Happy Thanksgiving Day and many good deals on Black Friday!</p>
<p>&#8212; The Wikidot Team</p>
<p>by <span class="printuser avatarhover"><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" ><img class="small" src="http://www.wikidot.com/avatar.php?userid=1&amp;amp;size=small&amp;amp;timestamp=1527182469" alt="michal-frackowiak" style="background-image:url(http://www.wikidot.com/userkarma.php?u=1)" /></a><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" >michal-frackowiak</a></span></p>
Thu, 24 Nov 2016 17:02:18 +0000
Tomorrow is Black Friday — a highly anticipated day for many Wikidot users. Therefore we have prepared a special deal (yes, a discount!) for all our current and new users — and it starts now! Here are the details:

All prices are 40% off till Tuesday, 29 November. They apply to both new upgrades and prolongations. You can save additional 15% on top of the discount if you pay with bitcoins (simply choose "Bitcoin" at checkout).

]]>
http://blog.wikidot.com/blog:pieterPieter Hintjens passed awayhttp://blog.wikidot.com/blog:pieter
<p>Pieter Hintjens, <span class="printuser avatarhover"><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/pieterh" ><img class="small" src="http://www.wikidot.com/avatar.php?userid=99&amp;amp;size=small&amp;amp;timestamp=1527182469" alt="pieterh" style="background-image:url(http://www.wikidot.com/userkarma.php?u=99)" /></a><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/pieterh" >pieterh</a></span>, passed away yesterday after fighting his cancer. Unfortunately the cancer won.</p>
<div class="image-container aligncenter"><img src="http://blog.wdfiles.com/local--files/files/ph.jpg" style="max-width: 300px" alt="ph.jpg" class="image" /></div>
<p>There is no exaggeration in saying Pieter was the single most influential person in the Wikidot history &#8212; his hyperactivity resulted not only in dramatic changes at Wikidot, but also gave birth to several sub-projects. There was a time we have been working together night and day to make Wikidot better, talked about the future, what's waiting for us. These moments were inspiring and we will remember Pieter as someone who can devote himself completely to make something happen.</p>
<p>Pieter was one of the first persons that helped Wikidot become a truly global project &#8212; he was the first one to invest in Wikidot, which allowed us rent an office and hire first developers. He spent months in Poland away from his family to work with us. And to eat pizza with ketchup and mayonnaise :-)</p>
<p>It's not only Wikidot that Pieter left behind &#8212; he is pretty well known for work on ground-braking <a href="http://zeromq.org/">ZeroMQ</a>, various protocols and <a href="https://github.com/hintjens">software projects</a>, his involvement with FOSS movement, but also as a <a href="http://hintjens.com/books">writer</a>. Even a quick look at his <a href="https://twitter.com/hintjens">Twitter profile</a> shows how many people he inspired and how enormous gap his absence will leave.</p>
<p>It's not fair to say Pieter is gone &#8212; his work is still here and will keep inspiring people. I believe the projects he started will be around much longer than lifespan of a single human. But still I can't help the sadness and emptiness after his death.</p>
<p>by <span class="printuser avatarhover"><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" ><img class="small" src="http://www.wikidot.com/avatar.php?userid=1&amp;amp;size=small&amp;amp;timestamp=1527182469" alt="michal-frackowiak" style="background-image:url(http://www.wikidot.com/userkarma.php?u=1)" /></a><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" >michal-frackowiak</a></span></p>
Wed, 05 Oct 2016 09:13:22 +0000
Pieter Hintjens, pieterh, passed away yesterday after fighting his cancer. Unfortunately the cancer won.

There is no exaggeration in saying Pieter was the single most influential person in the Wikidot history — his hyperactivity resulted not only in dramatic changes at Wikidot, but also gave birth to several sub-projects. There was a time we have been working together night and day to make Wikidot better, talked about the future, what's waiting for us. These moments were inspiring and we will remember Pieter as someone who can devote himself completely to make something happen.

Pieter was one of the first persons that helped Wikidot become a truly global project — he was the first one to invest in Wikidot, which allowed us rent an office and hire first developers. He spent months in Poland away from his family to work with us. And to eat pizza with ketchup and mayonnaise :-)

It's not only Wikidot that Pieter left behind — he is pretty well known for work on ground-braking ZeroMQ, various protocols and software projects, his involvement with FOSS movement, but also as a writer. Even a quick look at his Twitter profile shows how many people he inspired and how enormous gap his absence will leave.

It's not fair to say Pieter is gone — his work is still here and will keep inspiring people. I believe the projects he started will be around much longer than lifespan of a single human. But still I can't help the sadness and emptiness after his death.

]]>
http://blog.wikidot.com/blog:tags-and-custom-fields-optimizationsSelecting pages by tags or custom fields now blazingly fasthttp://blog.wikidot.com/blog:tags-and-custom-fields-optimizations
<p>Last week we have re-shaped our database and made several performance improvements that should directly affect your sites, especially if you use tag and custom field selectors within the <a href="http://www.wikidot.com/doc-modules:listpages-module">ListPages module</a>. Even if not &#8212; your sites should appear a bit snappier too since the general load on the databases has decreased significantly.</p>
<p>by <span class="printuser avatarhover"><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" ><img class="small" src="http://www.wikidot.com/avatar.php?userid=1&amp;amp;size=small&amp;amp;timestamp=1527182469" alt="michal-frackowiak" style="background-image:url(http://www.wikidot.com/userkarma.php?u=1)" /></a><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" >michal-frackowiak</a></span></p>
Wed, 04 May 2016 14:38:28 +0000
Last week we have re-shaped our database and made several performance improvements that should directly affect your sites, especially if you use tag and custom field selectors within the ListPages module. Even if not — your sites should appear a bit snappier too since the general load on the databases has decreased significantly.

Here's what should be faster now:

Selecting by tags

There are several large sites on Wikidot that depend on tags for categorizing pages. Take Wikiwealth for example. It uses tags to associate numerous data with appropriate market instruments and then invokes ListPages to render useful information to the visitor. The data is so large that every time we had been checking database status there had always been a few queries related to WikiWealth hanging around.

We have basically re-written parts of Wikidot engine that deals with storing tags and selecting pages by tags. We have created new fields on page tables in the database and built indexes on it. As a result the queries that used to take 0.5 seconds now take 0.002 seconds to execute.

Our own issue tracker, built on tags, works much nicer too. It selects pages by tags, e.g.

Our main page contains 15 ListPages and CountPages modules. After the database redesign its content is rendered significantly faster.

If your site uses any complex ListPages or CountPages construct that selects pages by tags, you will likely see an improvement too.

Selecting by custom fields

If your site contains form-enabled pages and you use custom field selectors in ListPages or CountPages or you order results by custom fields — there are several improvements too. We have decided to store all page attributes in a separate table using database type designed to store flat key-value data (HStore).

Selecting pages by custom fields has never been optimized since its introduction a few years ago. One of the new sites that take advantage of form-enabled data is DarkSouls3 wiki. It uses data-enabled pages to categorize game items. For example their Weapons page uses several ListPages modules to list all items (pages) categorized as Axes, Bows, Swords etc. The database optimizations we've done reduced specific query times from 0.8s to 0.008s. It makes a huge difference when working with the content or viewing it.

Any changes in user interface?

No, the changes are limited to backend only. No changes should have been introduced that would affect results returned by ListPages nor CountPages. If, by any chance, your site displays results other than you expect, please let us know. Although we've extensively tested the improvements there might be a few quirks we missed.

Tags and custom fields in data forms can now scale much better as sites grow. If you plan on creating sites with structured data, even storing thousands of items, I suggest you should give data forms a try.

]]>
http://blog.wikidot.com/blog:black-friday-2015-50-percent-offBlack Friday - 50% off when you upgrade or prolonghttp://blog.wikidot.com/blog:black-friday-2015-50-percent-off
<p>This very day you have been probably already hit with emails detailing promotions, deals and ultimate price reductions for stuff (someone thinks) you might want. It's Black Friday again. Some love it, some hate it, but the fact is you can save a lot if you shop smart.</p>
<div class="image-container aligncenter"><img src="http://blog.wdfiles.com/local--files/files/GetPRO.jpg" alt="GetPRO.jpg" class="image" /></div>
<p>This year we keep it simple &#8212; no lengthy blog posts, just facts &#8212; upgrade your account to any of our Pro plans or prolong your current plan at <strong>50% off the regular price</strong>.</p>
<p>No small-print, no catches, no extra requirements. Moreover, if you upgrade now and after a while conclude it's not-as-cool-as-advertized &#8212; remember we have the <strong>30-day full-refund policy</strong>.</p>
<p>To upgrade check out the <a href="http://www.wikidot.com/plans">Pricing page</a> and go directly to the <a href="https://www.wikidot.com/account/upgrade">Upgrade panel</a>.</p>
<p>by <span class="printuser avatarhover"><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" ><img class="small" src="http://www.wikidot.com/avatar.php?userid=1&amp;amp;size=small&amp;amp;timestamp=1527182469" alt="michal-frackowiak" style="background-image:url(http://www.wikidot.com/userkarma.php?u=1)" /></a><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" >michal-frackowiak</a></span></p>
Fri, 27 Nov 2015 07:59:12 +0000
This very day you have been probably already hit with emails detailing promotions, deals and ultimate price reductions for stuff (someone thinks) you might want. It's Black Friday again. Some love it, some hate it, but the fact is you can save a lot if you shop smart.

This year we keep it simple — no lengthy blog posts, just facts — upgrade your account to any of our Pro plans or prolong your current plan at 50% off the regular price.

No small-print, no catches, no extra requirements. Moreover, if you upgrade now and after a while conclude it's not-as-cool-as-advertized — remember we have the 30-day full-refund policy.

]]>
http://blog.wikidot.com/blog:new-engine-featuresThree new engine features that make the impossible easierhttp://blog.wikidot.com/blog:new-engine-features
<p>A while ago we silently pushed a number of new features to the Wikidot engine that allow you to create even more advanced constructs! They were first tested by some of our users (thanks!) and now they are ready be announced. Here they are!</p>
<div id="u-doc-carousel" class="carousel slide" data-ride="carousel">
<ol class="carousel-indicators">
<li class="active" data-target="#u-doc-carousel" data-slide-to="0"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">&nbsp;</span></li>
<li data-target="#u-doc-carousel" data-slide-to="1"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">&nbsp;</span></li>
<li data-target="#u-doc-carousel" data-slide-to="2"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">&nbsp;</span></li>
</ol>
<div class="carousel-inner" role="listbox">
<div class="item item1 active">
<div class="carousel-caption">
<h1><span><tt>[[div_]]</tt>, <tt>[[span_]]</tt></span></h1>
<h3><span>advanced layouts just got easier</span></h3>
<p>You could even build your own DIY carousel.<br /></p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="item item2">
<div class="carousel-caption">
<h1><span>The power of logic and math</span></h1>
<h3><span>thanks to&#8230; <tt>#if</tt>, <tt>#ifexpr</tt>, <tt>#expr</tt> operators</span></h3>
<p>They won't do your calculus homework, but can come in handy.<br /></p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="item item3">
<div class="carousel-caption">
<h1><span><tt>head</tt> and <tt>foot</tt> in ListPages</span></h1>
<h3><span>it's like <tt>prependLine</tt> and <tt>appendLine</tt> but better</span></h3>
<p><em>Search for simplicity you must</em> &#8212; Master Yoda</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<a class="left carousel-control" role="button" data-slide="prev" href="#u-doc-carousel"><span class="glyphicon glyphicon-chevron-left"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">&nbsp;</span></span></a><a class="right carousel-control" role="button" data-slide="next" href="#u-doc-carousel"><span class="glyphicon glyphicon-chevron-right"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">&nbsp;</span></span></a></div>
<p>by <span class="printuser avatarhover"><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" ><img class="small" src="http://www.wikidot.com/avatar.php?userid=1&amp;amp;size=small&amp;amp;timestamp=1527182469" alt="michal-frackowiak" style="background-image:url(http://www.wikidot.com/userkarma.php?u=1)" /></a><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" >michal-frackowiak</a></span></p>
Wed, 21 Oct 2015 20:45:31 +0000
A while ago we silently pushed a number of new features to the Wikidot engine that allow you to create even more advanced constructs! They were first tested by some of our users (thanks!) and now they are ready be announced. Here they are!

[[div_]], [[span_]]

advanced layouts just got easier

You could even build your own DIY carousel.

The power of logic and math

thanks to… #if, #ifexpr, #expr operators

They won't do your calculus homework, but can come in handy.

head and foot in ListPages

it's like prependLine and appendLine but better

Search for simplicity you must — Master Yoda

[[div_]], [[span_]] — no extra <p> nor <br/>

A number of users pointed out that [[div]] and [[span]] elements often force additional line breaks and paragraphs when compiled into HTML. This is OK when creating text documents but it's asking for trouble when composing layouts where uncontrolled whitespace can ruin the effect. This is especially true with Bootstrap layouts.

Before

After adding underscores

[[span_]] [[a_ href="#"]] example link [[/a]] [[/span]]

compiles to

<span> <a href="#" target="_blank">example link</a> </span>

See the difference? Cleaner output and more control. The carousel like the one you can see above is now much easier to type — the parser should not surprise you with extra newlines nor paragraphs now, provided you put underscores to div and span elements.

Logical and mathematical operators — [[#if, [[#ifexpr, [[#expr

When creating dynamical pages, e.g. using ListPages module it was really hard to perform manipulation on numerical values. Some of our users pointed out they could do some great stuff if we added an extra processing layer on top of the parser. So we added three new simple constructs that work like this:

compiles to…

100 -10 6 -3.33333333333 is greater than -3.5 2 display if true

Sure these expressions are of little use in static pages but they become really useful when combined with ListPages. You could then dynamically add elements (HTML classes, page elements) based e.g. on data forms attributes! See the example below how it's used to add the "active" class to the first carousel element.

Note that prependLine and appendLine are inline parameters and can only contain a single line of code. The newer form, although requires more typing, allows several lines of wiki code in header and footer of ListPages. Both appendLine/prependLine and foot/head will continue to be supported, so if you are fine with one-liners you do not need to change your habits.

One could set the category as private which would allow only admins to modify content of the carousel. This would prevent other users from seeing the pages. Actually they do not need to — their content will only be displayed via the ListPages module.

Here is the full story. Since the beginning of the year we can see increased interest in protecting wikis with SSL certificates. Wikis can be then available through secure HTTPS protocol, not only encrypting the transmission between a browser and a server, but also validating the identity of the website itself.

But there was a problem: if you wanted to use secure access (HTTPS) to your wiki, you could enable it in the admin panel (a Pro+ plan is needed anyway), but our default certificates can only secure wikis within the .wikidot.com domain. If you tried to access you wiki through a custom domain, you could see an error like this one:

This is because your browser requested content for a custom domain (e.g. example.com), but the request was received by web servers handling the .wikidot.com domain.

Definitely not something you want your visitors to see. In order to solve this you would need a certificate for your own domain. You could buy it from a number of companies and we could install it. Until recently however we had to charge an extra yearly fee for creating and maintaining an extra endpoint for your wiki. We actually had to rent an extra IP address and install your certificate on a web server associated with this new IP address. Not only it required extra work on our end, but the growing number of certificates made the infrastructure difficult to maintain.

Last November we upgraded our webserver infrastructure. We unified some of the endpoints and started using the SNI (Server Name Identification) to handle multiple SSL certificates by single endpoints.

SNI enables our web endpoints to handle multiple SSL certificates we need for Wikidot to work. What's more we can now use SNI to serve our clients' certificates from the very same endpoints! Adding extra certificates for custom domains no longer requires huge amount of work and can be easily completed within minutes.

Last month we were able to install first customer certificate and it works great so far.

So if you have or want to have a Pro+ account, want a secure wiki with a custom domain, we can install your SSL certificate free of charge. Just contact us at moc.todikiw|troppus#moc.todikiw|troppus, we will help you with the process!

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http://blog.wikidot.com/blog:startup-weekend-olsztynWikidot at Startup Weekend Olsztynhttp://blog.wikidot.com/blog:startup-weekend-olsztyn
<p>It was a great weekend in Olsztyn. I have been mentoring at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/StartupWeekendOlsztyn">Startup Weekend</a> for the second time, this time Olsztyn.</p>
<div class="image-container aligncenter"><img src="http://blog.wdfiles.com/local--files/files/sw_all.jpg" style="width:500px; max-width:100%;-moz-box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px #ccc; -webkit-box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px #ccc; box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px #ccc;" alt="sw_all.jpg" class="image" /></div>
<p>What I particularly like about such events is that they are beneficial not only for participants who end up with experience gains, new connections and (hopefully) great time spent but also for everyone involved. During the three days I met awesome people, possibly started a fruitful cooperation, had a chance to see old friends. It's a win-win for everyone.</p>
<div class="image-container aligncenter"><img src="http://blog.wdfiles.com/local--files/files/sw_mentor.jpg" style="width:400px; max-width:100%;-moz-box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px #ccc; -webkit-box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px #ccc; box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px #ccc;" alt="sw_mentor.jpg" class="image" /></div>
<p>by <span class="printuser avatarhover"><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" ><img class="small" src="http://www.wikidot.com/avatar.php?userid=1&amp;amp;size=small&amp;amp;timestamp=1527182470" alt="michal-frackowiak" style="background-image:url(http://www.wikidot.com/userkarma.php?u=1)" /></a><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" >michal-frackowiak</a></span></p>
Tue, 31 Mar 2015 11:00:33 +0000
It was a great weekend in Olsztyn. I have been mentoring at Startup Weekend for the second time, this time Olsztyn.

What I particularly like about such events is that they are beneficial not only for participants who end up with experience gains, new connections and (hopefully) great time spent but also for everyone involved. During the three days I met awesome people, possibly started a fruitful cooperation, had a chance to see old friends. It's a win-win for everyone.

At Startup Weekends everyone can bring an idea for a startup. The only issue I find it that when there are no constrains on the category it results in pretty generic and honestly poor ideas. As a result, all ideas were targeted towards consumers, many involved user-generated content and online communities, many concentrate on mobile apps. Sure, the success depends on many factors, execution to be one of the most important. But honestly I would expect either a bit more crazy, non-schematic ideas, or projects that try to solve real problems.

Do not take me wrong — Startup Weekends are great opportunities to validate an idea, pitch it in front of audience, test one's skills and try to reach the goals in a sandbox environment. Most importantly, one can fail (and people do) without any real consequences. Knowing how to fail and not being afraid of it is an awesome skill and it's so much better to learn it during a 3-day marathon than after having spent months of work and tons of money.

What's most important — everyone had fun and learned something. Despite the fact that the jury (and audience) had to chose winners, I think every single team was a winner. Congratulations!

Wikidot was one of the sponsors of the event. We awarded the Audience Award winners — The Fridge Challenge — with Pro Plus accounts.

Big thanks to the organizers, all participants and guests! It's been great time!

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http://blog.wikidot.com/blog:2015-vat-mossNew 2015 VAT regulationshttp://blog.wikidot.com/blog:2015-vat-moss
<p>Due to a change in VAT ruling in European Union (MOSS &#8212; Mini One Stop Shop) we are obliged to introduce changes in our payment system. Starting 1 Jan the VAT rate for all digital services (including Wikidot Pro accounts) is based on the location of the EU consumer &#8212; the country in which the consumer is ordinarily resident. As a consequence we need to apply different VAT rates, ranging from 15% up to 27%, based on the location of a subscriber.</p>
<div class="image-container aligncenter"><img src="http://blog.wdfiles.com/local--files/files/MOSS.png" style="width:400px; max-width:100%;-moz-box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px #ccc; -webkit-box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px #ccc; box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px #ccc;" alt="MOSS.png" class="image" /></div>
<p>Despite the new ruling we are keeping things simple. We decided to keep the gross prices same for everyone in EU, regardless of their country of residence. No changes here. Behind the scenes, we apply VAT rates for your country and alter the base net price.</p>
<p>by <span class="printuser avatarhover"><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" ><img class="small" src="http://www.wikidot.com/avatar.php?userid=1&amp;amp;size=small&amp;amp;timestamp=1527182470" alt="michal-frackowiak" style="background-image:url(http://www.wikidot.com/userkarma.php?u=1)" /></a><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" >michal-frackowiak</a></span></p>
Thu, 08 Jan 2015 13:17:53 +0000
Due to a change in VAT ruling in European Union (MOSS — Mini One Stop Shop) we are obliged to introduce changes in our payment system. Starting 1 Jan the VAT rate for all digital services (including Wikidot Pro accounts) is based on the location of the EU consumer — the country in which the consumer is ordinarily resident. As a consequence we need to apply different VAT rates, ranging from 15% up to 27%, based on the location of a subscriber.

Despite the new ruling we are keeping things simple. We decided to keep the gross prices same for everyone in EU, regardless of their country of residence. No changes here. Behind the scenes, we apply VAT rates for your country and alter the base net price.

Nothing changes for EU-VAT registered companies as they always pay the net price (except for companies from Poland).

Nothing changes for non-EU subscribers as they are not subject to EU VAT regulations.

If you are upgrading your account or prolonging your subscription, all the details should be clearly stated on the order pages and in your invoice.

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http://blog.wikidot.com/blog:all-best-in-2015All best in 2015!http://blog.wikidot.com/blog:all-best-in-2015
<p>On behalf of the Wikidot Team I would like to wish all of you all best in 2015. May you wikis be full of great content, gather devoted communities and be awesome!</p>
<div class="image-container aligncenter"><img src="http://blog.wdfiles.com/local--files/files/happy2015.png" style="width:400px; max-width:100%;-moz-box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px #ccc; -webkit-box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px #ccc; box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px #ccc;" alt="happy2015.png" class="image" /></div>
<p>Thanks for the 2014 &#8212; the year that was a bit difficult for us. Thank you for your activity on community sites and helping us run unique wiki-related services! But I am always most thankful for each wiki you have built on Wikidot! (except for spammers, sorry.)</p>
<p>We are looking at 2015 to do some great things. We will definitely do our best to keep Wikidot a top wiki platform in 2015!</p>
<p>Best,<br />
Michal</p>
<p>by <span class="printuser avatarhover"><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" ><img class="small" src="http://www.wikidot.com/avatar.php?userid=1&amp;amp;size=small&amp;amp;timestamp=1527182470" alt="michal-frackowiak" style="background-image:url(http://www.wikidot.com/userkarma.php?u=1)" /></a><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" >michal-frackowiak</a></span></p>
Thu, 01 Jan 2015 16:18:42 +0000
On behalf of the Wikidot Team I would like to wish all of you all best in 2015. May you wikis be full of great content, gather devoted communities and be awesome!

Thanks for the 2014 — the year that was a bit difficult for us. Thank you for your activity on community sites and helping us run unique wiki-related services! But I am always most thankful for each wiki you have built on Wikidot! (except for spammers, sorry.)

We are looking at 2015 to do some great things. We will definitely do our best to keep Wikidot a top wiki platform in 2015!

Anything can be improved. The strategy that (almost always) works is: If something is good, double it. It should be even greater. It applies to rainbows for sure. We are no magicians to control weather for sure, but there is something we can do…

I am glad to announce that we have just doubled storage space for all premium accounts. From now on you can enjoy twice as much space for your uploaded files. The new storage amounts are:

Pro Lite

15 GB

30 GB

Pro

50 GB

100 GB

Pro Plus

100 GB

200 GB

It's not a time-limited promotion nor an exclusive offer. We are increasing the space for all current users and all future upgrades.

As you likely remember, none of the wikis have a limit on number of pages — Wikidot gladly hosts both large wikis and small ones.

I am really happy that people, companies and organisations constantly find new, creative ways to use Wikidot. I hope the doubled storage will let new awesome applications emerge!

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http://blog.wikidot.com/blog:bitcoin-black-friday-2Black Friday 40% OFF - starting now!http://blog.wikidot.com/blog:bitcoin-black-friday-2
<p>Black Friday is coming this week, but why wait? We decided to start the celebration <strong>right now</strong>. Each year we have something special. This time it's no different. Let's get to the point:</p>
<div class="image-container aligncenter"><img src="http://blog.wdfiles.com/local--files/files/WikidotBF2014.png" style="max-width: 80%" alt="WikidotBF2014.png" class="image" /></div>
<p>Anytime between now and 3 December if you upgrade or prolong your subscription and select &quot;Bitcoin&quot; at the end of checkout &#8212; you will get <strong>40% off the final price</strong>.</p>
<p>by <span class="printuser avatarhover"><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" ><img class="small" src="http://www.wikidot.com/avatar.php?userid=1&amp;amp;size=small&amp;amp;timestamp=1527182470" alt="michal-frackowiak" style="background-image:url(http://www.wikidot.com/userkarma.php?u=1)" /></a><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" >michal-frackowiak</a></span></p>
Wed, 26 Nov 2014 10:12:15 +0000
Black Friday is coming this week, but why wait? We decided to start the celebration right now. Each year we have something special. This time it's no different. Let's get to the point:

Anytime between now and 3 December if you upgrade or prolong your subscription and select "Bitcoin" at the end of checkout — you will get 40% off the final price.

Why?

Bitcoin again? That's right. We did a similar deal last year, we announced it on Bitcoin Black Friday and got fantastic feedback.

We are huge fans of Bitcoin and we deeply believe Bitcoin is a great step forward in online payments. It's secure, decentralized, fast and reliable. From a geeky currency Bitcoin grew into a powerful financial tool that has a great chance to change the way we think about money.

How?

If you are a total Bitcoin newbie (as I was a year ago), here is great guide at Bitcoin.org. It contains everything you need to know to jump onboard!

The promo will last till 3 December. If you are new to Bitcoin, note that verification might take some time at some exchanges. You can also buy bitcoins locally with LocalBitcoins, find a local Bitcoin community or use a service that sell bitcoins instantly.

Cheers!

Update

The Bitcoin Friday 2014 Promo is over. Thanks to everyone who used it! If you missed it, do not worry, there is a permanent 15% discount when you pay with Bitcoin!

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http://blog.wikidot.com/blog:startup-weekend-torunStartup Weekend Toruńhttp://blog.wikidot.com/blog:startup-weekend-torun
<p>Wow. It was an intense weekend. I have already <a href="http://blog.wikidot.com/blog:join-us-at-startup-weekend-torun">blogged</a> about the first edition of <a href="http://www.up.co/communities/poland/torun/startup-weekend/4336">Startup Weekend Toruń</a> and it actually did happen! And man, it was awesome. How much awesome? Check out this short movie!</p>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://blog.wikidot.com//www.youtube.com/embed/x125eefQ3-g" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></p>
</div>
<p>Thanks to organizers who asked me to mentor the teams. I really enjoyed it (you can see me in the movie too) and I believe the teams benefited from my experience and tips. I am also happy that Wikidot could support this initiative.</p>
<p>by <span class="printuser avatarhover"><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" ><img class="small" src="http://www.wikidot.com/avatar.php?userid=1&amp;amp;size=small&amp;amp;timestamp=1527182470" alt="michal-frackowiak" style="background-image:url(http://www.wikidot.com/userkarma.php?u=1)" /></a><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" >michal-frackowiak</a></span></p>
Thu, 13 Nov 2014 11:39:11 +0000
Wow. It was an intense weekend. I have already blogged about the first edition of Startup Weekend Toruń and it actually did happen! And man, it was awesome. How much awesome? Check out this short movie!

Thanks to organizers who asked me to mentor the teams. I really enjoyed it (you can see me in the movie too) and I believe the teams benefited from my experience and tips. I am also happy that Wikidot could support this initiative.

Besides, SWToruń was a great opportunity to meet old friends and make new.

There were 15 teams altogether, each working on building a valid product from scratch. 54 hours should be enough for everyone, right? I am impressed how much you can actually do in such short time. But apart from work, there was time for socializing and some fun too :-)

My favorite project (apart from the winning one) was Kuko — a platform that let you buy home-made meals from anyone who wants to sell them. Great if you want to prepare an extra meal and sell it for small profit, but it's even greater if you don't have time to cook yourself!

Last but not least, congratulations to the winning team of InsTicket, an NFC-based public transport ticket system. Using InsTicket you can purchase bus/tramway tickets by simply holding your phone against an NFC tag. The user experience of this solution is simply great and the team put a lot of effort in the project. Congratulations! Wikidot awarded the winning team with Pro+ accounts for each of the team members — remember to collect your prize!

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http://blog.wikidot.com/blog:scaling-issue"Scaling issue" - what happened over the weekend and why HAProxy is better than ELBhttp://blog.wikidot.com/blog:scaling-issue
<p>Last Friday I started drafting a new blog post about Wikidot server uptime. Every month <a href="http://pingdom.com">Pingdom</a> sends us a monthly report with average response times, uptime summaries for various checks we have. The numbers are always stellar &#8212; something around 99.99% uptime with only a few minutes of detected outages.</p>
<h2><span>Friday night, a thriller story</span></h2>
<p>Our infrastructure is pretty stable and resilient, so I was hoping to get 100% uptime on November. Suddenly on Friday evening we started getting various alerts, from Pingdom, CloudWatch and other services. Something was wrong. Wikidot was slow &#8212; loading a page could take up to a minute, sometimes pages could not load at all. Pingdom alerts acted like crazy &#8212; various wikis went down and up radomly.</p>
<div class="image-container aligncenter"><img src="http://blog.wdfiles.com/local--files/files/Pingdom1.jpg" style="width:500px; max-width:100%;-moz-box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px #ccc; -webkit-box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px #ccc; box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px #ccc;" alt="Pingdom1.jpg" class="image" /></div>
<p>by <span class="printuser avatarhover"><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" ><img class="small" src="http://www.wikidot.com/avatar.php?userid=1&amp;amp;size=small&amp;amp;timestamp=1527182470" alt="michal-frackowiak" style="background-image:url(http://www.wikidot.com/userkarma.php?u=1)" /></a><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" >michal-frackowiak</a></span></p>
Wed, 05 Nov 2014 12:43:08 +0000
Last Friday I started drafting a new blog post about Wikidot server uptime. Every month Pingdom sends us a monthly report with average response times, uptime summaries for various checks we have. The numbers are always stellar — something around 99.99% uptime with only a few minutes of detected outages.

Friday night, a thriller story

Our infrastructure is pretty stable and resilient, so I was hoping to get 100% uptime on November. Suddenly on Friday evening we started getting various alerts, from Pingdom, CloudWatch and other services. Something was wrong. Wikidot was slow — loading a page could take up to a minute, sometimes pages could not load at all. Pingdom alerts acted like crazy — various wikis went down and up radomly.

Any service works, until it doesn't. ELB is no exception.

We immediately jumped to computers. Friday evening, a perfect time for an emergency situation. But everything seemed to be O.K. with our servers. No excessive load, no increased number of connections. Nothing. Even request rate per second was within limits.

It took us hours of experiments, replacing web servers, altering parameters to discover the problem was beyond our control. The issue was introduced by AWS Elastic Load Balancers that distribute web requests over our farm of servers.

Actually we have 6-10 web servers, and over 20 servers altogether.

ELBs are a great piece of AWS infrastructure, with auto-scaling, failover etc. But they are black boxes. Sure you get some metrics, logs, but nothing more. You cannot control critical parameters, you cannot scale it manually, you cannot see what exactly is going on with them when things go wrong.

Client (browser) connections were stuck in SYN_SENT state (the connection was not fully established). It might have been caused by internal resource starvation at balancers, a SYN flood attack or any misconfiguration. Anyway, balancers could not handle incoming connections and we had no idea why.

Yes, we fixed it. Well, kind of.

Eventually we set up a new ELB to handle traffic to Wikidot and, surprisingly, it started working out of a box. Problem solved, we thought. I went to bed at 3 AM believing the issue is solved. AWS support was notified.

It did not work for long. Saturday evening the problem repeated. We did a quick trick — since we had the old balancer around (did not delete it), we switched traffic to the old balancer. It helped… for a few hours. We had to launch a brand new balancer, but now we suspected (correctly) the problem would repeat.

Again and again…

The same happened on Sunday and we were really tired of the situation. We were doing everything we could to keep Wikidot online and responsive, but it was not easy and we were losing hope. We were trying to distribute traffic over balancers to mitigate the issue. It helped, but not for long.

The situation continued on Monday. Despite our efforts some users were getting timeout errors, our alerts were indicating performance issues. We have ruled out a possibility of a SYN flood attack, there was clearly something wrong with ELBs.

HAProxy to the rescue!

After unfruitful conversation with AWS support we made the decision yesterday to ditch ELBs and use open source HAProxy load balancers to handle our traffic. Despite we had to configure SSL termination, make HAProxy automatically add/remove web servers and, most importantly, prepare it to handle hundreds requests per second — we did it within hours. By evening we had a working setup and we made the switch.

It's cheaper and it works better.

Guess what, HAProxy is amazing. Two c3.large instances are handling traffic to wikidot.com without sweat. Encouraged by this we added traffic from wdfiles.com (serves user-uploaded files) too (ditching one more ELB). Each HAProxy balancer handles up to 200 requests per second with less than 10% CPU load. Not to mention it's not going spontaneously offline nor exhibiting any strange issues. Rock-solid.

HAProxy gives us much more control over the connection handling — connection timeouts, rate limiting, abuse handling, anti-DDOS settings and much, much more. ELB is great as it works out-of-a-box, but as we learned the hard way, it's not a one-tool-fits-all thing.

Actually, it was not the first time we had issues with ELBs. Twice in the last 2 years we had to call support to do their VooDoo tricks to make ELBs work properly with wdfiles.com. But this time the explanation we got from AWS did not make much sense, nor did anything good at all.

We could not wait any longer for any solution. When I am writing this we still have not got any response apart from saying it's a "scaling issue" and balancers are still broken. I am glad we did not wait, so far HAProxy rocks!

Be up to date, follow @wikidot on Twitter!

We have been reporting critical milestones of the operation on our Twitter account. If you have a critical wiki at Wikidot, want to be the first to know what's going on — follow @wikidot!

Last but not least

If you have experienced problems with Wikidot in the last few days, I am terribly sorry. Things happen, some are beyond our control. One thing for sure — Wikidot reliability is our priority and we always do what we can to keep your wikis online, responsive and secure. We do our best!

Best, Michal

Update

On Mon I spent a while on phone with David who is managing the ELB team. He confirmed there was a scaling issue and connection saturation problem on our ELB. Indeed we had extra traffic starting 1st Nov of non-human nature and this escalated the issue.

David, thanks for spending time explaining the problem. I highly appreciate it!

Update 2

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http://blog.wikidot.com/blog:join-us-at-startup-weekend-torunJoin us at Startup Weekend in Toruń, 7-9 Novhttp://blog.wikidot.com/blog:join-us-at-startup-weekend-torun
<p>Toruń is clearly emerging as an important place on the start-up map in Poland. Not only the number of technology companies increases, but what's more important, we can see the local entrepreneur scene forming, stimulated by numerous events and organizations. There are strong communities of developers, entrepreneurs, IT-gurus, designers and investors gathering around <a href="http://missiontorun.org/en/">Mission Torun</a>, <a href="http://smartspace.io/en">Smart Space</a> and <a href="http://bl.przedsiebiorca.pl/">Business Link</a>. The ecosystem is forming and it's really, really great to see (and be part of)!</p>
<div class="image-container aligncenter"><img src="http://blog.wdfiles.com/local--files/files/SW1.png" style="width:600px; max-width:100%;-moz-box-shadow: 3px 3px 3px #ccc; -webkit-box-shadow: 3px 3px 3px #ccc; box-shadow: 3px 3px 3px #ccc;" alt="SW1.png" class="image" /></div>
<p>There is one special event in Toruń I would like to invite you to. It's <a href="http://www.up.co/communities/poland/torun/startup-weekend/4336">Startup Weekend, on 7-9 November</a>.</p>
<p>by <span class="printuser avatarhover"><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" ><img class="small" src="http://www.wikidot.com/avatar.php?userid=1&amp;amp;size=small&amp;amp;timestamp=1527182470" alt="michal-frackowiak" style="background-image:url(http://www.wikidot.com/userkarma.php?u=1)" /></a><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" >michal-frackowiak</a></span></p>
Thu, 23 Oct 2014 08:24:39 +0000
Toruń is clearly emerging as an important place on the start-up map in Poland. Not only the number of technology companies increases, but what's more important, we can see the local entrepreneur scene forming, stimulated by numerous events and organizations. There are strong communities of developers, entrepreneurs, IT-gurus, designers and investors gathering around Mission Torun, Smart Space and Business Link. The ecosystem is forming and it's really, really great to see (and be part of)!

"Startup Weekends are 54-hour long events that bring entrepreneurs, designers and developers together to form teams and work on startup projects. Beginning with open mic pitches on Friday, attendees bring their best ideas and inspire others to join their team. Over Saturday and Sunday teams focus on customer development, validating their ideas, practicing LEAN Startup Methodologies and building a minimal viable product. On Sunday evening teams demo their prototypes and receive valuable feedback from a panel of experts."

I am really happy to be one of the mentors at the event, on-site. Yep, you can spot it right away on the website :-) This means I will help the teams by advising and sharing my experience, hopefully to build great projects during the weekend.

To make things more spicy, Wikidot is one of the sponsors of the event. Startup Weekend is not just an acceleration event but also a competition. Wikidot will provide top-level Pro+ accounts for all members of the winning team (as selected by the judges on Sunday).

If you are anywhere near Toruń, make sure you get to the event! If not for the prizes, then for fun!

Useful links:

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http://blog.wikidot.com/blog:sslv3-vulnerability-poodleSSLv3 vulnerability - POODLEhttp://blog.wikidot.com/blog:sslv3-vulnerability-poodle
<div class="image-container floatright"><img src="http://blog.wdfiles.com/local--files/files/poodle.jpg" style="width:181px; height:181px;-moz-box-shadow: 3px 3px 3px #ccc; -webkit-box-shadow: 3px 3px 3px #ccc; box-shadow: 3px 3px 3px #ccc;" alt="poodle.jpg" class="image" /></div>
<p>Dear Wikidot Users,</p>
<p>on Tuesday, October 14, 2014, the Google research team <a href="http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2014/10/this-poodle-bites-exploiting-ssl-30.html">released details</a> on a new form of attack on the SSL protocol &#8212; the one that underlays the secure connections over <tt>http<strong>s</strong>://</tt>. It's called <strong>POODLE</strong> (Padding Oracle On Downgraded Legacy Encryption) and it targets CBC ciphers in SSLv3. Is it serious? <strong>Yes</strong>.</p>
<p>An attacker can perform a man-in-the-middle attack, force a fall-back to SSLv3 (which is an old, almost legacy protocol) and de facto decrypt &quot;secure&quot; client-server transmission. The attacker must however place himself between the client and the server, e.g. acting as a WiFi access point, or gain access to routers or gateways. It's not that uncommon as you think.</p>
<p>The general recommendation is not to use the vulnerable SSLv3 and completely remove it from the supported protocols.</p>
<p>At Wikidot we have <strong>already pulled SSLv3 from all our servers</strong> &#8212; all our load balancers and all standalone web servers. It should not affect anything from the user perspective, but it greatly improves the security. Want to verify? Try <a href="https://www.tinfoilsecurity.com/poodle">this tool</a> and enter your site URL (or just <tt>www.wikidot.com</tt>).</p>
<p>by <span class="printuser avatarhover"><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" ><img class="small" src="http://www.wikidot.com/avatar.php?userid=1&amp;amp;size=small&amp;amp;timestamp=1527182470" alt="michal-frackowiak" style="background-image:url(http://www.wikidot.com/userkarma.php?u=1)" /></a><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/michal-frackowiak" >michal-frackowiak</a></span></p>
Thu, 16 Oct 2014 07:55:21 +0000

Dear Wikidot Users,

on Tuesday, October 14, 2014, the Google research team released details on a new form of attack on the SSL protocol — the one that underlays the secure connections over https://. It's called POODLE (Padding Oracle On Downgraded Legacy Encryption) and it targets CBC ciphers in SSLv3. Is it serious? Yes.

An attacker can perform a man-in-the-middle attack, force a fall-back to SSLv3 (which is an old, almost legacy protocol) and de facto decrypt "secure" client-server transmission. The attacker must however place himself between the client and the server, e.g. acting as a WiFi access point, or gain access to routers or gateways. It's not that uncommon as you think.

The general recommendation is not to use the vulnerable SSLv3 and completely remove it from the supported protocols.

At Wikidot we have already pulled SSLv3 from all our servers — all our load balancers and all standalone web servers. It should not affect anything from the user perspective, but it greatly improves the security. Want to verify? Try this tool and enter your site URL (or just www.wikidot.com).

I know that our users value privacy and security. We are doing everything we can to protect your data, keep it accessible and secure.

If you want to make a step forward and disable SSLv3 in your browser (highly recommended, I just did), take a look at this guide. This should protect you from the vulnerability on websites that have not disabled SSLv3 just yet. I hope patches for Android, iOS and all major browsers are coming quickly.

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http://blog.wikidot.com/blog:notebook-website-templateNotebook Website Templatehttp://blog.wikidot.com/blog:notebook-website-template
<p>In August, the <a href="http://blog.wikidot.com/blog:new-bootstrap-website-template">Standard Template</a> was officially released and has since then seen some success. While a very good start for general purpose sites, it is now time to start unveiling task-specific applications, starting with&#8230;</p>
<div style="text-align: center; font-size: 36px;">
<p><a href="http://notebooks.wikidot.com/" target="_blank">The Notebook Template</a></p>
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<div class="col-md-12 image-box-image"><img src="http://blog.wdfiles.com/local--files/blog:notebook-website-template/notebook_cover.png" class="img-responsive img-rounded" alt="notebook_cover.png" /></div>
<p>by <span class="printuser avatarhover"><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/timothy-foster" ><img class="small" src="http://www.wikidot.com/avatar.php?userid=197988&amp;amp;size=small&amp;amp;timestamp=1527182470" alt="Timothy Foster" style="background-image:url(http://www.wikidot.com/userkarma.php?u=197988)" /></a><a href="http://www.wikidot.com/user:info/timothy-foster" >Timothy Foster</a></span></p>
Sun, 05 Oct 2014 13:54:20 +0000
In August, the Standard Template was officially released and has since then seen some success. While a very good start for general purpose sites, it is now time to start unveiling task-specific applications, starting with…

What is it?

The Notebook Template is a specialization of the Standard Template and a renovation of the old notebook app from 2009. This site is designed to emulate an organized notebook similar to Microsoft's OneNote. For instance:

Pages are automatically sorted by sections and subsections, giving you a very clean tree of topics

Navigation is simple, allowing you to quickly traverse topics and their subtopics

Pages can be hidden from the general public yet show up for you as the administrator

You may tag pages in order to better organize all topics by their content

Marking pages provides special emphasis for pages needing attention

Being based off of the Standard Template, this site inherits most of the cool features the Standard Template offers, like Bootstrap integration

And finally, if you are already well accustomed with Wikidot, this template grants you full access to Wikidot features like categories, live templates, and data forms without compromising the structure of the notebook (this was not so in the old version)

This is great for both personal and community projects, and just like the Standard Template, the Notebook Template can be extended to fit many different purposes. Let your imagination run!

How can I start?

All you need to do is visit the site and click on the "Get Started" button located at the top. If you have a Wikidot account, then this will allow you to clone the site. Once you have done that, your newly created site comes packaged with a number of help pages that provide basic Wikidot editing information.

Many users had brought up issues with the Standard Template, and because of their feedback, I was able to improve the template even more. Therefore, if you find problems, don't hesitate to tell us. Otherwise, let us know what you think below!